The American arrived on Fortunia in a haze of secrecy and whisper. He’d found himself a cubby-hole of sorts on the coastal path, far away from expat and native alike. Crispy Mulligan had been paid handsomely, and sworn to secrecy, so word of his presence came slowly, and then all at once. In fact, it was entirely by chance that he was spotted, and if such chance were lacking, I may have left the island after a storied diplomatic career having never met him, or even known he was there. Alas, it was in the throes of clandestine passion that he was uncovered, and so came to my attention.

Mr. Grace had long kept mistresses on the island, a cavalcade of local women, whom he woo’d with exaggerated tales of his life in Britain, and the generally unspoken assumption that he had callously - albeit unwittingly - killed the previous President. This afforded Mr. Grace - who was otherwise a man of a diocesan quality - an air of mystery and machismo. He took his mistresses to the caves on the north side of the island, and indulged his bizarre exotic fantasies. It was on this latest tryst that he and his native concubine spotted a shack, cobbled together seemingly in hours - or at least in the two weeks since his last sojourn to the north side. The timing was such that, as he cautiously approached the door, a rock in hand for self-defence, it swung open, striking him in the face and knocking him to the floor. Looking up from his back, as his mistress ran, shrieking, for the car, Mr. Grace spotted The American.

Of course it was not Mr. Grace who had spread word, so as to avoid the obvious question; ‘well, whatever were you doing on the north side of the island, Mr. Grace?’. He therefore left the burden of whispers to the local woman, and word spread like wildfire, quickly reaching the throne room of Ezekiel Bosch, and then the Ambassador. Though he saw fit to not tell me, and it was from another new-comer that I learned of what was to come.

“Won’t take long at all,” said Tony, as he placed a cup of smouldering tea by my side. “First time?”

“First time doing what?”, I asked.

“First time being interviewed of course!”, he chuckled. “You’ve set quite the impression on the rock—that’s what I’ve started calling Fortunia, the Rock, clever, no? I guess not, you can call any old island a rock and think it makes you awfully clever.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve never been interviewed before.”

Tony Hurst had come to Fortunia, like most of us had, with the sense that his days in Albion were spent. He had been a popular journalist in London, granted all manner of secrets and clearances, such that he was the envy of Fleet Street, and subject of intense resentment; and the plotting of his downfall had been in play for some time. He had taken this all in good humour, for he was a climber - as my father had been - and grinned and bore all that was thrown his way. In fact, in spite of the game afoot it was not the actions of others that sent him spiralling into exile, but rather his own. He was a true journalist. If Tony Hurst was given a lead, he followed it to the ends of the earth, and when he had no leads he made them up. Such a gallery of journalistic misdeeds is only possible with thorough planning, and the careful covering of tracks. Tony slipped up a mere two weeks after gaining his first editorship; when he met a peripheral member of the Royal Family for lunch at the Windsor, and was made privy to all manner of sordid secrets from within the minutiae of dynastic social politics. An errant Prince knocking up a show-girl, a lady-in-waiting who surreptitiously nursed a coursing addiction to gin and barbiturates, and a brewing divorce in Number Ten - this was, of course, true, but Tony hadn’t known. Where Tony slipped up was in his chosen source. He had long believed, as had any man of ink and rumour, that a royal does not stoop to even read the tabloids, let alone comment on their veracity. However, this supposed source was in India when the meeting was said to have taken place, and Tony was sent packing, finding Fortunia after falling foul thrice more on his Odyssean journey. Here, he had founded the Fortunian Review, a paper with he as editor, sub-editor, beat reporter, and sole columnist. Spratt was given an agony aunt section.

She was wholly unqualified for it, of course, having neither the wisdom nor the patience for human folly. Her advice read more like veiled threats, satiating her own desire, born from the intense tedium of island life, for a cutting of drama. One such column read; ‘If your husband insists on frequenting the whorehouses of the East Bay, it is well within your right to alert the fishmongers. They know what to do with such raucous filth.’

The Fortunian Review did well enough, for there is no island, however small, that does not feast, unendingly, at the buffet of gossip and scandal. And so four weeks after his arrival, his attention fixed upon the Embassy. Boffin was less than forthcoming, and the luncheon they had endured did not conjure a publishable feature, and Tony hadn’t the option of lying. I was next.

Tony took a long sip of his tea, his sharp blue eyes studying me over the rim of his chipped mug. He then tapped the tape recorder once, as if to check it was alive, then leaned back in his chair. The room smelled of boiled tea leaves and dampened wood; it was a stuffy day, and the fan overhead did little but shuffle the heavy air from one corner to another.

“So,” Tony said, his voice lilting with mock innocence. “Referendum’s coming up in six months. Have you much to say on that?”

I gave a noncommittal shrug, hands folded neatly in my lap.

“Surely you have some thoughts?”, Tony pressed. “Historic moment for Fortunia. End of the Crown’s rule. Bloodless revolution, perhaps.”

“I’m here to serve,” I said evenly. “Not to comment.”

From the hallway came a dry, barking voice: “He thinks it’s idiotic.”

Tony’s eyes shot up. “Was that—?”

“Ignore him,” I said quickly, straightening my jacket.

But Tony was grinning wide now, delighted at the intrusion. “Ambassador Boffin, was that your esteemed opinion we just heard?”

“I speak off the record, Hurst. Let me make that clear. So you can bowl a wide with your devilish leg-spin.”

“Ivan,” Tony said, voice oily-smooth, returning his gaze to me. “You’ve become quite the man of the moment here on Fortunia. They say you took Bosch down at the poker table.”

I offered a small, polite smile but said nothing.

Tony leaned forward, elbows on the rickety table. “Everyone’s waiting to hear your thoughts on the referendum. You’re a quiet lad, the thoughtful type. But when you speak—” he paused, flashing a grin, “people listen.”

“I can assure you, Tony, you’re wasting your time. I have no thoughts to share.”

“None at all?”, Tony asked with a raised brow.

“I was raised to believe it impolite to discuss politics.”

“Is politics not your line of work?”, he asked.

Boffin called again from the hallway: “He has plenty of thoughts. He’s just not stupid enough to say them. Not least to you. I know what you wrote about His Royal Highness, Hurst, you specious swine! That man was in India. India!”

“Must you yell at me from the hallway, Ambassador?”, Tony replied.

"No comment," Boffin shouted back, his voice echoing down the narrow hall. "Off the record, you hear me, Hurst? Off the record!”

Tony chuckled, tapping the recorder again. “Of course, Ambassador. Absolutely off the record.”

There was a pause, before Boffin continued. “You print one bloody word of mine and I’ll have you on the first tug back to Portsmouth, see if I don’t. Crispy Mulligan is an old friend!”

Tony winked at me, as if he and I we were co-conspirators. “He’s a rambunctious little puppy, isn’t he?”

I afforded Tony a humouring, for I was admittedly amused by the scene unfolding before me. “Careful, Hurst,” I said. “Mulligan’s an old friend.”

“You’re an impressive fellow, Ivan. I’ve read up on you. Solid education, solid family. Meir. Your father is a very impressive man. I met him once, at the Windsor. But he is a man of bodacious action, you are far subtler. You have no scandal, no debt, no concubine tucked away in East Bay. A man of principle. A man who sees the bigger picture.”

He let the compliment hang in the air, waiting for me to fill the silence.

I folded my hands on the table. “I put out the odd fire, little else.”

“Humble,” Tony noted, before leaning back and scanning his mind for prose, he spoke while miming a pen with his hand, dancing upon an imaginary page. “Ivan Meir, Officer for Communications to the Ambassador, is ironically a man of few words. A sound, and academically accomplished chap of twenty and two, he is the good cop to Boffin’s bad?”

From the hall, Boffin again: “Don’t give him a lick, Meir!”

Tony sighed, sensing the impasse before him. “Well, at least give me something on the American.”

The words had barely left his tongue when the door burst open and Boffin stormed in. “Right,” he said, in a jumble of incandescent rage. In a single, startling movement, he snatched up the tape recorder from the table and hurled it against the wall. It shattered into plastic and tangled tape, the whirring voice dying mid-sentence.

Tony leapt to his feet. “Boffin!”

“There is no American. I don’t want to hear about any fantastical American. Now, be gone, Tony. And Ivan, I need to speak with you about an—Australian.”

I showed Tony, awkwardly, to the door, and saw him out. He left with a sigh of resignation. “Ah, Ivan,” said Boffin, no more than thirty seconds after I had seen him last. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I need you for a mission. I need you to go and parley with the American.”

“So, he’s real then?”, I asked.

“Of course he’s bloody real, Ivan! I’ve been quaking in my boots for weeks. I don’t know who he is or what he wants. Does he want the island? Does Washington? Lord, give us bullets, we haven’t any more to spare!”

“Why is it that every time there’s an existential threat to our way of life, it’s me who has to go and speak with him?”

“Well,” said Boffin, shifting uncomfortably and looking to his imagination for answer. “You’re the Officer for Communications, are you not?”

I sighed, sensing that it was less hassle to just follow my orders. “Where is he?”

“Well, according to a local girl—one of Mr. Grace’s I presume, he’s out in the sticks, on the North Side. Do yourself a favour, Ivan, and get yourself prepared. I have only my grandfather’s old service revolver, which I shan’t be sharing with you, lest it gets lost or broken, He stormed German trenches with it, and I plan to sell it on to fund my retirement, you see. It’s a valuable old thing, one of a kind. It’ll fetch quite the penny. There’s a cricketing set upstairs; a bat, some pads, a helmet. Be a good lad and fetch that, it’s the best I can offer you.”

The cricketing set had seemingly not been used for some time, and required a heavy dusting. Perhaps some integral part of my inner sense of pride had been broken or lost on Fortunia, and I donned the gear without question. I hadn’t played cricket since school, and lumbered clumsily down the stairs. At the foot of the final decline, I heard Spratt at her station, proudly reading her latest column aloud. “I believe it was once said, that a child cannot remember any physical abuse if it occurs before the age of three. If the little bastard insists on not drinking his milk, then perhaps you ought to try that.”

She paused upon seeing me. “Morning, Ivan,” she chirped. It was three in the afternoon. “Off for a quick innings, are you?”

“No,” I said.

“You’re a man of collegiate education, are you not?”

“I am.”

“Is there a second O in Corporal?”

“Yes there is,” I said.

“I knew there was. Have fun in your game, Ivan. Watch out for leg-spins.”

I returned to Boffin’s office, where he was sat at his desk, admiring a scrimshaw with a magnifying class. He looked up, eyeing me through the glass, and then without. “Well, don’t you look ridiculous.”

“It’s not too late to give me your gun,” I retorted.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Retirement plan.”

“Let’s pretend for a second,” I began, as Boffin’s gaze returned to the wooden block in his hand. “That I am indeed about to confront an encroaching American, of untrammeled malevolence and an unclear objective, who may very well be heavily armed.”

“Yes?”, Boffin asked.

“What exactly am I supposed to do with a cricket bat? Knock his bullet for six runs?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he giggled, snuffling between laughs. “I’ve arranged back-up.”

Before I could enquire further, a car-horn blasted outside. It had seemingly been tampered with, and was so loud that the walls of the Embassy vibrated. I knew straight away who was outside. Sure enough, when I emerged into the burning afternoon sun, I was met by a convoy of stern military men in stern military vehicles, at the fore, and standing out of a sun-roof with a mounted rifle, was Bosch.

“Ivan!”, he called. “What the fock are you wearing, my boy? Have we interrupted you? Were you just about to play a leisurely game of cricket while Fortunia burns all about you?”

One of the rear windows rolled down, revealing that Crispy Mulligan had lent a hand as well. “Yeah, Ivan. You look a right prick in all that.”

“Fine,” I called back. “I’ll take it off.”

“No,” said Bosch with a filthy laugh. “Keep it on.”

I climbed into the convoy’s lead vehicle beside Bosch, who greeted me with a grin, such that it seemed to split his face in two. Bosch relished violence, and assumed that a generous helping was to come. Mulligan gave me a curt nod from the back, cradling a handgun as if it were a newborn babe. One engine roared into life, then two, then three and four and five, and we pulled away from the embassy gates, Bosch—evidently intoxicated by the theatre of it all—stood up through the sunroof once more and bellowed into the island breeze: “Men of Harlech! March to glory!”

His men joined in, with an affected gusto. Though there was some variation. Some cried out the archaic, blood-thirsty dirge in a manner that seemed more suited to Crimea than the Caribbean. Others simply spoke the words, dispassionately, and giving the impression that this was not the first time they had been called into martial action for the sake of Bosch’s twisted libido. I watched a goat scatter from the roadside as Bosch sang lustily about storming ramparts, his voice trembling with an insatiable thirst for battle, a coursing adrenaline. The tyres kicked up clouds of coral dust, and I tried to focus on the sea shimmering to our left, but Bosch’s arms—raised in patriotic rapture—kept flailing dangerously close to the mounted weapon.

We reached the shack not long after, a ragged thing nestled between wind-battered palms, with little more structural integrity than a schoolboy’s treehouse. Bosch climbed down with great ceremony, waving us forward. “Right then,” he said, rubbing his hands. “Meir, Mulligan—you’re up.”

“Why us?”, I asked.

“Because I’m the General, and Generals don’t knock on doors. We command doors to be opened. So, without further ado, and pretty please, with a cherry on top, kick down that fockin’ door.”

Mulligan clambered out of the car, cocking his pistol with the care of a man who dearly wanted to use it, and handed me a look of vague encouragement. I followed, adjusting my helmet, and gave the bat a few preparatory swings.

“Right,” he said, voice low, as we reached the shack. “Give it a knock.”

I looked at the door. It had no bell, no handle, no number—just planks and nails. I tapped it with the bat. Nothing.

“Harder,” Mulligan whispered.

I raised the bat like an obedient tail-end, the innings’ night watchman, and gave it a solid knock. The sound echoed oddly through the still air. Then—motion.

From within, the slow creak of a chair, followed by the unmistakable sound of deliberate footsteps. Ten of them, by my count. Each one closer than the last. Mulligan raised his pistol, steadying it with both hands. I, for reasons unknown even to myself, adopted a textbook batting stance. Elbows up, feet apart, eyes on the door.

The latch clicked and the door creaked open. The figure beyond was shrouded in back-lighting, and he appeared to us on the threshold a mere shadow. “Step forward and state your business,” Mulligan growled in his trademark Ulster snarl.

There was a pause. Then a gentle, confused, “What?”

Mulligan sighed, but lost none of his gumption. “Step forward—and state your business!”

The figure shuffled forward, emerging into the light. In that moment, the nightmarish concoction of our shared imaginations died. For standing there before us, was Herman. From the moment I had heard of The American, only an hour or so earlier, I had pictured nothing beneath a hulking menace, an appendix of Pax Americana, here to crush and destabilise, the bring a storm of shock and awe, so that Uncle Sam could pick up the pieces, and anoint a fifty-first state. Instead, we were met with frail old man, no younger than seventy. Short, hunched over, his waistband tucked well above his stomach. He smiled at us, in a vacant, benign, and deeply pleasant way.

“You’ll have to speak a little louder and a little slower, young man,” he said with a warm, cracked chuckle, and a southern drawl. “I’m a bit hard of hearing these days. Time—” He trailed off wistfully. “Time will do that to a man. Any man. Any man at all.”

Mulligan and I stood frozen, stunned, our weapons still awkwardly poised. Slowly, we lowered them. The convoy stirred behind us. Bosch leaned forward over the bonnet of his vehicle, squinting at the scene. Then he laughed—a tremendous, booming laugh that echoed across the distance between us.

“That’s it?!”, he cried, slapping the top of the car. “Boffin called in the army for a little old man?”

The soldiers joined him in laughter, albeit nervously, while the old man adjusted his belt and waved at the convoy. “Lovely spot you’ve got here. You’re doing a fine job keeping a beautiful island.”

“Boffin needs to see this,” Bosch continued. “I need to see Boffin seeing this. You must come to the Embassy—”

“Herman,” the old man said with a smile.

“You must come to the Embassy, Herman.”

Bosch then clapped his hands twice, as a lackey at the back of the convoy exited his car, with a phone, and sprinted to the front. Bosch tossed it to me. “Call Boffin. Tell him we’ve achieved our aims.”

Word travels quickly on Fortunia. And after Bosch and his soldiers had satisfied themselves with a photoshoot with The American, and he was loaded into the convoy, we drove back to the Embassy, to find that an extravagant tea party had been set up. The expats were in full force, Bosch’s soldiers laid down their arms, and the charm offensive was under way, as we all broke bread in Boffin’s office. I found myself in the midst of the crowd which had assembled, as linen suits and military fatigues clashed and blended, listening in as Mr. Grace and Tony Hurst spoke gaily.

“Honestly,” said Grace to Hurst. “When I first saw him, he was just a shadow. I hadn’t any idea he was just a little old man.”

Mrs. Mindful, who was also listening in, entered the fray. “Whatever were you doing on the North Side, Mr. Grace?”

The sound of a metal spoon clinking on porcelain cut short Mr. Grace’s blushes, as Boffin stood to address the room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Boffin began, raising an empty hand, that mimicked holding a glass. “I must say that I feel very silly. I suppose that this has been an education. We are reminded today that first impressions are indeed refuge of the foolish. Fortunia is a place of welcome. A place where a man may find peace, provided he brings no trouble. Today, we remember that it is not uniforms or accents that make an enemy, but actions. And in Herman, we have found not an enemy—but a cherished guest.”

As he spoke, Spratt made her way about the room, handing out flutes of champagne to the congregation. Boffin continued: “Here on Fortunia, we cannot afford to judge a man by the silhouette in his doorway. We must embrace those who arrive on our shores—be they expats, locals, or peculiar drifters with questionable building permits.”

There followed a polite smattering of applause. “I should like to thank us all. To our British community, whose decency and decorum sustain this little diplomatic outpost, and to our Fortunian neighbours, whose hospitality remains unmatched. And though the ballot box may soon tear us apart, I should like to hope that my fellow countrymen will join me in wishing that we may stay together, work together, and grow together.”

“Not here, Boffin,” said Bosch in a low grumble.

“Very well,” said Boffin. “I may have spoken out of turn.”

“And lastly,” he continued, lifting his glass higher. “To Herman. May he find comfort and peace on this blessed island. To Fortunia!”

“To Fortunia!”, the room called back.

“To friendship!”, Boffin continued.

“To friendship!”, came the echo.

“And to Herman!”

Collectively, the room turned to face the little old man, only to find that he was gone. “Herman?”, Boffin asked, confusedly. A beat of silence passed before Boffin’s eyes flicked to his desk. “No, no, no!”, he cried, dashing forward and yanking the drawer with such a ferocity that it flew out of the desk and crashed into the wall. Boffin rummaged through the scattered items, before raising his head, his face maroon with shock and rage. “My revolver!”, he howled. “He took my bloody revolver!”

Forming a collective mass of bio-matter, we surged outside to find that a vehicle was missing from the convoy, and a lone guardsman was laying on the floor in a daze. “What happened?”, Bosch barked.

“A cricket bat,” said the prone guardsman. “He hit me with a cricket bat.”

“Not the bat too!”, Boffin howled in anguish. Way ahead on the dirt path, we saw some debris had been kicked in the air. It was unmistakably set into motion by a vehicle, and was unmistakably heading for the port.

“We haven’t a moment to lose,” Bosch shouted, leaping into the driver’s seat, and waving Boffin, Mulligan and myself into the vehicle. Tony Hurst saw his opening, and himself leapt in as well, just as the car sped off in pursuit. Tony narrated the events excitedly into a dictaphone.

“Monday,” he intoned. “Late afternoon. Fortunia is gripped by farce. An old American, having deceived an entire High Commission, has absconded with a priceless firearm and military transport. The effected up in arms, giving chase.”

“Shut him up!”, Boffin called from the passenger seat, as Mulligan attempted to wrestle the device from Tony’s hands. “Hit him with he bat, Ivan!”, commended Boffin.

“I don’t have the fucking bat, do I?!”, I snapped, which amused Mulligan.

“So, he’s taken Boffin’s gun, Bosch’s car, and Ivan’s bat. That just leaves me and Rat O’Callaghan over here.”

“I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you, Crispy,” Tony smirked. “Don’t forget that we’re racing for the port.”

Mulligan’s eyes widened, and he fixed his gaze ahead. “Step on it, Bosch. It’ll be the last thing that old bastard ever does.”

Alas, we were just a moment too late. We reached the port just in time to see Mulligan’s boat drifting out to sea. At the helm stood Herman, standing straight as an arrow, and grinning with pomp, Boffin’s revolver in hand. He waved the gun, as Bosch leapt into the water, and swam, fruitlessly, in pursuit. Herman fired three triumphant shots into the air. “Thanks for the tea, lads!” he called. “Lovely island!”

Then he vanished into the blue. “My fucking boat!”, Mulligan cried out.

Boffin sank to his knees, his head in his hands. “What just happened?”

I crouched beside him, clutching the discarded cricket bat. “I don’t know,” I said. “But he’s in for a heck of a retirement.”